Kozlowski Sentence and Viewpoints
Bump and Update (TL): Law Prof Ellen Podgor of White Collar Crime Blog weighs in:
Unlike Bernard Ebbers, but like Jamie Olis, the defendants were sent off to jail immediately. They were not released pending the appeal. .... Unlike those sentenced in the federal system (e.g. Rigas, Ebbers, and Olis), both Kozlowski and Swartz have the opportunity to present their case and circumstances for parole after they have served 8 1/3 years. But some will argue that the prisons awaiting Kozlowski and Swartz will be harsher than those facing the federal offenders (although it should be noted that Jamie Olis does not exactly have luxury quarters).
Is this sentence necessary? No. The minimum would have been 1-3 years and perhaps the sentence should have been closer to that time frame. Closer not because the crime was not wrong and should be punished, but closer because these individuals are first offenders who are unlikely to commit a crime again in the future. Their positions of power have been stripped from them and they are unlikely to have the ability or power to ever be a menace to society again. Are the fines and restitution appropriate? Yes. Make them pay back every dime that was taken and more.
*****
Original Post (9/19/05)
by TChris
Dennis Kozlowski, who came to exemplify corporate greed as the CEO of Tyco, was sentenced today to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison. Tyco’s CFO, Mark H. Swartz, received the same sentence. Kozlowski was also ordered to pay $97 million in restitution and $70 million in fines.
Some have argued that corporate criminals are undeserving of harsh sentences and that the trend to impose long sentences is an overreaction to the corporate scandals that emerged in recent years. If that is true, it is also true that drug dealers are undeserving of their (usually) much more severe sentences, also imposed as an overreaction to a perceived crisis for at least the last quarter century.
Jonathan Simon, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley, said: "The most obvious comparison for the emerging attitude toward white-collar criminals is the harsh punishment we give to people involved in the drug trade. But both represent increasingly irrational and inhumane levels of punishment."
Lengthy sentences are necessary in some cases to protect society from incorrigibly violent offenders. But do they serve to deter corporate malfeasance? Draconian sentences certainly haven’t prevented the peddling of illicit drugs.
Prof. Simon argues that white collar criminals are more responsive to the threat of imprisonment than are drug dealers.
"Deterrence is, in my view, highly contextual," he said. "If you live in a community where young people die all the time from stray bullets - whether they are gang-banging or going to school - it is pretty hard to deter anyone with threats of punishment.
"In contrast, white-collar workers are extraordinarily sensitive to threats since their whole socialization and environment encourage calculation of future benefit and cost."
Perhaps, but does the threat of 25 years provide greater deterrence than the threat of 5 years to an individual who can’t envision spending even a month behind bars?
Mr. Simon suggested that "it would be far more effective to impose a lot of short sentences on a wider group of offenders rather than the example model of harshly punishing a few celebrity cases while most potential offenders know that they are unlikely ever to be caught and punished."
| < Hurricane Rita and the Keys | UPDATED: Police Prevent Sheehan From Finishing Speech > |
